Preemptive Kidney Transplants Add No Benefit, Study Says
By Dennis Thompson HealthDay Reporter
WEDNESDAY, June 4, 2025 — Folks who might need a kidney transplant in the future shouldn’t rush to get one, a new study says.
Patients gain no benefit from getting a donated kidney before their own kidneys deteriorate to the point that they require dialysis, researchers reported recently in the journal Transplantation Proceedings.
“Our study shows that waiting until you really need a transplant is when you should get one,” Dr. Abhishek Kumar, medical director of the Living Kidney Donor Program at Yale School of Medicine, said in a news release. “Otherwise, you're losing that time on your own kidney.”
Dialysis puts stress on the body and weakens the immune system, even as it prolongs life by helping failing kidneys filter waste products from a person’s bloodstream.
Because of this, it’s commonly believed that people with end-stage kidney disease would be better off if they receive a kidney transplant before they need dialysis, researchers said.
“If you receive an organ from the deceased donor list, you don’t have control over when you will get the organ,” Kumar said. “On the other hand, if there is a living donor, and you have more control over timing, the question is, when is it most beneficial to get the transplant?”
To help answer that question, researchers analyzed outcomes for more than 288,000 kidney transplants that occurred between 2000 and 2020, including more than 52,000 surgeries that occurred before a person required dialysis.
There wound up being no difference in a person’s risk of death whether they received their kidney earlier or later, results show.
Dialysis up to six months did not negatively impact a person’s long-term health, if a transplant was performed within that period, researchers found.
“Sometimes I tell patients the best time to get a transplant is the day you need dialysis,” Kumar said.
However, he added that the best time for dialysis and transplant is different for every person and difficult to predict.
“We should always avoid dialysis if we can, but performing a transplant early is not the solution,” Kumar said.
Sources
- Yale School of Medicine, news release, May 23, 2025
Disclaimer: Statistical data in medical articles provide general trends and do not pertain to individuals. Individual factors can vary greatly. Always seek personalized medical advice for individual healthcare decisions.
© 2025 HealthDay. All rights reserved.
Posted June 2025
Read this next
Dr. Robert Jarvik, Inventor of First Human Artificial Heart, Dies at 79
FRIDAY, May 30, 2025 — Dr. Robert Jarvik, the man behind the world’s first permanent artificial heart used in a human, has died. He was 79, The New York Times...
Donor Hearts Might Be Kept Healthy In Cold Storage Longer
THURSDAY, May 22, 2025 — More donor hearts could become available for transplant, thanks to a new discovery that could protect them from damage during...
Deaths Waiting For Lung Donation Have Dropped Under New Guidelines
WEDNESDAY, May 21, 2025 — New guidelines for allocating donated lungs are saving more lives, a new study says. By prioritizing medical urgency, the guidelines caused a...
More news resources
- FDA Medwatch Drug Alerts
- Daily MedNews
- News for Health Professionals
- New Drug Approvals
- New Drug Applications
- Drug Shortages
- Clinical Trial Results
- Generic Drug Approvals
Subscribe to our newsletter
Whatever your topic of interest, subscribe to our newsletters to get the best of Drugs.com in your inbox.